What makes a good host?

daveyjoe

Just wondering what everybody values most when they go looking for a place to host their website?
What features should a web host have?
How much do you expect to pay and what do you expect to get for that money?

tomED

From my experience and I have used a fair few hosting companies in my time..... There are a few things that are paramount to me

1. Support
2. Reliability
3. Robustness
4. Willingness to investigate items that are not typically "the norm"
5. Someone I can build a relationship with - who understands our needs.

Thats what I look for when making a decision, apart from the typical specs and pricing of the hosting etc.

When it comes to features a webhost should have... that really comes down to what you require, whether its linux, windows etc.

Prices - they vary again depending on your requirements.

I use www.blacknight.ie for all our hosting - they're really good guys in there - they should be able to sort you out with whatever you need at competive prices!

My two cents....

Serbian

If you have bad support, nothing else will matter; people will always remember you for your bad support. My list would be:

1. Support
2. Reliability
3. Ability to meet Specific Requirements

daveyjoe

tomED wrote:

Prices - they vary again depending on your requirements.

For €10-15/month, what kind of spec would you expect?

Sposs

tomED wrote:

From my experience and I have used a fair few hosting companies in my time..... There are a few things that are paramount to me

1. Support
2. Reliability
3. Robustness
4. Willingness to investigate items that are not typically "the norm"
5. Someone I can build a relationship with - who understands our needs.

Thats what I look for when making a decision, apart from the typical specs and pricing of the hosting etc.

When it comes to features a webhost should have... that really comes down to what you require, whether its linux, windows etc.

Prices - they vary again depending on your requirements.

I use www.blacknight.ie for all our hosting - they're really good guys in there - they should be able to sort you out with whatever you need at competive prices!

My two cents....

The fact you have worked for them might make your recommendation slightly biased me thinks!!!!

You should let actual customers comment on different hosts.

Or see http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=160

daveyjoe

Sposs wrote:

The fact you have worked for them might make your recommendation slightly biased me thinks!!!!

You should let actual customers comment on different hosts.

Or see http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=160

He may have designed a site for them but does he actually work as an employee for Blacknight?

By the way I'm not actually looking for a webhost, I'm just trying to gauge opinion on what a good web host is.

magpie

A good host would be one that doesn't do the following:

a) Demand a month's notice to change your hosting to another supplier (after hiking up their charges) and threaten to suspend the hosting on your Small Business' website and email unless you pay their bill by credit card over the phone within 2 days of it being issued.

b) Say .ie domains are €50 a year on their website then charge you €165 a year renewal.

You know who you are.

mneylon

Sposs wrote:

The fact you have worked for them might make your recommendation slightly biased me thinks!!!!

You should let actual customers comment on different hosts.

Tom has worked for us - yes. No secret there. He is also a client of ours.
The designer who did your website has also worked for us.
So what?

mneylon

daveyjoe wrote:

I'm just trying to gauge opinion on what a good web host is.

I think most people would agree that reliability is one of the main factors.
They may move due to price, but if the service and reliability aren't up to scratch ....

tomED

Sposs wrote:

The fact you have worked for them might make your recommendation slightly biased me thinks!!!!

You should let actual customers comment on different hosts.

Or see http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=160

Hey Sposs,

To a true professional it doesn't make a difference whether we did work for them or not. True professionals give honest opinions based on fact rather than friendship/work relationship.

I'm not in the business of recommending ****e services to anyone - as it look at the end of the day it looks bad on me aswell as the provider when something goes wrong.

I have been working in this industry for 8 years now and I have dealt with many a hosting company. I began using Blacknight over 2 years ago and they have got me out of plenty of holes....

In my post I simply suggested he talk to Blacknight - I didn't even mention anything about their services.... It was simply a recommendation!

tomED

blacknight wrote:

I think most people would agree that reliability is one of the main factors.
They may move due to price, but if the service and reliability aren't up to scratch ....

Reliability and Support would be on the same level for me!
They are both more important than price.

Tom

tomED

daveyjoe wrote:

For €10-15/month, what kind of spec would you expect?

I'm assuming VAT is included in your €15. So I would at least want 150MBs Disk Space, MySQL, 100 Email Accs, IMAP etc.

A typical basic/standard hosting package should be accessible with €15 per month. But you get what you pay for

Tom

Fergal C

Serbian wrote:

If you have bad support, nothing else will matter; people will always remember you for your bad support. My list would be:

1. Support
2. Reliability
3. Ability to meet Specific Requirements

I agree fully. It is often useful to look at a hosts public support forum to get a feel for how well they are supporting their customers.

mneylon

Henri wrote:

I agree fully. It is often useful to look at a hosts public support forum to get a feel for how well they are supporting their customers.

It's not that much of an indicator unless the forum is the primary support medium.

rsynnott

tomED wrote:

Hey Sposs,

To a true professional it doesn't make a difference whether we did work for them or not. True professionals give honest opinions based on fact rather than friendship/work relationship.

Well, yes, but can you provide proof that you're one of these "true professional" things? You're coming across sounding a bit like the god of Oracle...

steve-hosting36

An active public forum gives an excellent insight into a companies services and, more importantly, it's attitude to and interaction with its customers. At the end of the day, there is no substitute for direct contact. Phone them up, send an email, pop out to their offices and get the tour

Ph3n0m

Totally agree with Serbian and Henri

1. Support
2. Reliability
3. Ability to meet Specific Requirements

That above all else is what I look for - as long as I have a physical person I can "torment" or beat up if they try and "screw" me (as some dodgy hosts seem to do to their clients on a regular basis)

Also Sposs - this is a thread giving opinions on hosting companies - not an excuse for or pointing out who worked for whom or who did work for whom - if you feel like that, go away and get a "who works for whom" forum created.

And rsynnott - dont you start either

Anymore bitching and you're all banned

jmcc

The other aspect is that a hoster is really a hoster and not an n th level reseller with a cpanel. Many of the smaller hosters, other than web developers providing hosting services for their clients, are people dabbling in the hosting business. And they rarely last more than two years in the business. The problem for their clients is that when the hoster disappears, their websites and domains frequently go with them.

If you are using .ie domains then it is very important that the webhost is aware of what setting up a .ie involves (the nameservers have to be active for the domain first - with .com there is no DNS integrity checking).

Over the last few years, the whole hosting industry is moving towards the big commercialised operations. In real terms, this means that over 50% of Irish domains are hosted by only 22 or so hosters. These are the big guys. The quality of hosting deals from these hosters is easily equal to that available from US hosters. The Irish hosters are in the same timezone which is very helpful if something goes wrong.

Regards...jmcc

tomED

rsynnott wrote:

Well, yes, but can you provide proof that you're one of these "true professional" things? You're coming across sounding a bit like the god of Oracle...

That's because I am.........

Ph3n0m

tomED wrote:

That's because I am.........

ok if people are going to start professing that they have godlike powers, etc - there will be bannings - keep it on topic people

tomED

Ph3n0m wrote:

ok if people are going to start professing that they have godlike powers, etc - there will be bannings - keep it on topic people

A little humour never harmed anyone!

Ph3n0m

thats the problem with humour - it has to be funny to be considered humour

rsynnott

tomED wrote:

That's because I am.........

Erm, did you follow the link? You're not REALLY Don Burleson, are you? (Those other people are just made up). Eek. *runs away*

peterdoug

Price? It's a bit pointless saving the cost of a few cups of coffee a month on choosing one host over another, and I wouldn't waste time comparing a few mb discspace or gig traffic between (shared) hosting providers.

Your technical requirements should be met, and it's worthwhile checking if they have a demo of their file manager system if you plan on editing on-the-fly, because there's little you can do about that afterwards.

Support, as others said, is overall clearly the most important factor, but, as some posters rightly say, it's a bit hard to know how good it is until you've actually committed yourself-- cart before the horse kind of thing.
Host forums are a way, but, again as said, it depends on if that's a common route of complaining: also, big providers might have a lot of complaints/queries on the forums, smaller providers have very little, which
in proportion to total custom doesn't necessarily make the smaller provider better.

Coming back to Ireland I thought Irish based servers would be an advantage, but it's probably a psychological thing.
I think it's reasonable enough though to support local industry, if other things are equal.

If hosting is for your life-blood business rather than just a hobby site, it's
probably a good idea to get a local provider (whatever about where the servers are): This might mean a smaller outfit who can't support you round the clock (or give the lowest prices), but make up for it in personal
tailor-made solutions - it would be worth calling round to them and just see if you get on with the folks, in Ireland a lot of webdesigners do hosting on the side (in Kilkenny and Galway anyway), and if your websitebuilding talents aren't up to scratch, that might be a worthwhile route.

At the end of the day there's no more of a perfect host than a perfect house...it depends on the individual and their requirements.

You can just speak of own experiences:
I chose a large Dublin provider simply cause I'm based there and saw they were growing fast in terms of customers, and I was just testing some online solutions anyway.
I was pretty (and pleasantly) surprised that the manager Stephen did a lot of support work himself on say Sundays, and I just have a 'basic' solution.
Whether such support is generally the case here I don't know.

fizzy

yep i'd agree with others that support is paramount, as is reliability. given those, price is obviously a big factor as well because some hosts can *really* rip you off...

i've had dealings with 2 irish hosts in the past - the local factor is helpful there's no doubt about it. plus if you don't buy a .ie domain, you have to make sure your server is in ireland to show up in ireland only searches in the search engines which is key for irish businesses.

however, i would only say that support has been ok overall. certainly nothing special with the exception of one occasion. given the higher prices of irish hosts and the local factor, this disappoints me a little. although the time difference and server location can cause issues, i have found 2 US hosts who offer really exceptional service levels at next to nothing prices.

this has just been my limited personal experience though...